Global Warming is a much discussed topic today with the changing climatic conditions that we experience. Over the past 50 years the average global temperature has increased at the fastest rate in recorded history. Warmer global temperatures manifest periods of unusually warm weather and heat waves, droughts, extinction of pant species, warming of oceans that could fuel more intense hurricanes, sea level rise leading to coastal flooding, melting glaciers, Arctic and Antarctic warming.
Continued effects will make forests, farm and cities will experience new pests and more diseases caused by mosquitoes, there will be heavier snowfalls, flooding, earlier spring arrivals, and more forest fires. This could lead to massive food and water shortage, people migrating to other territories for survival, encroachment and war issues. The problem is serious and every individual ought to bring changes in their lifestyle and do something to conserve our nature.
The key to global warming is the accumulated carbon dioxide and other air pollution that is increasing in the atmosphere like a thickening blanket that traps sun’s heat and causes warming on earth. Gases that trap heat in the atmosphere are known as greenhouse gases. The main human activities that contribute to global warming are the burning of fossil fuels (coal, oil, and natural gas) and the clearing of land.
Most of the burning occurs in automobiles, in factories, and in electric power plants that provide energy for houses and office buildings. Power plants that burn coal are the largest source of carbon dioxide pollution followed by automobiles which produce billion of tons of CO2 annually in US. The Americans make up just 4 percent of the world’s population, but produce 25 percent of the carbon dioxide pollution. The emission is even more than China, India and Japan, combined. Clearly America ought to take a leadership role in solving the problem.
With the technology support, we should use burn less gas, use less electricity and prefer non-polluting resources. Trees and other plants remove CO2 from the air during photosynthesis. We must grow more and more plants and conserve our forest lands and greenery to save our planet.